"Italian migration is a weird phenomenon." With that understatement, artistic director Massimiliano Civili sets the stage for Sydney’s “The Weird Mob 2: The Italian Invasion” Film Festival, June 4th-9th. The festival explores and links Italian diasporic experiences in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Switzerland, and the United States, with the screening of shorts, documentaries, and feature length films. 

 

Films include older works like Francesco Rosi's The Magliari and Franco Brusati’s Bread and Chocolate (1974) to recent films like Fatih Akin’s Solino (2002) and Giuseppe Gagliardi’s musical road-movie mockumentary La vera leggenda di Tony Vilar (2006). As Civili writes, “This film festival demonstrates that in order to invade the world, the only weapons needed are a strong sense of community and a flexible and receptive culture.” Seems like we Americans can learned a thing or two from this event!

 

The festival sponsor is the Federation of Italian Migrant Workers and Families (FILEF) is a non-profit, progressive community organization established in Australia in 1972. It’s worth quote the organization’s description:

 

Its key objective is to promote a multicultural Australia which values the heritage and culture of all Australians. It’s a voluntary organization and to achieve its aims it organizes a variety of activities for all those who are interested in Italian language and culture, and in social issues, whether they are of Italian background or not.

FILEF also provides a forum for those who strive for a more just and ecologically sustainable society. A society that is democratic and inclusive. We also organize cultural and social evenings, public meetings and campaigns focused on current social issues. [. . .]

 

One off shoot of FILEF is Movimento Città Verde, who (sic) deals specifically with information on ecological issues [and] maintains contacts with the Australian environmental organizations . . . .

 

We do have a lot to learn from our paesani down under.